Pour on the Hospitality With Bar and Wine Cabinets

It's rare that I end up ahead of a trend, but that was the case six years ago when I embarked on a frustrating search for a particular sort of cabinet for a corner of my open kitchen/dining room.

What I needed was a place to serve guests drinks that wasn't my kitchen counter. I envisioned a sort of hutch where I could stow liquor and wine bottles behind closed doors, and that also had shelves for glassware and a generous work surface for mixing a Cosmopolitan, pouring some cabernet, or parking an ice bucket.

I didn't know at the time that what I was looking for was a bar cabinet, a home-furnishings category that had all but disappeared since its heyday during the Art Deco era. Neither did the furniture dealers I visited, who just scratched their heads at my request.

But, oh, what a difference a few years can make. Bar and wine cabinets of every style are easy to find these days. And they're not only handsome, they're high on function as well.

Crate & Barrel's sleek console-size Sutter Bar Cabinet ($999), for example, has swing-out doors with shelves, a stemware rack, a bottle-storage grid, and a removable tray. The Calais Wine Bar from Hooker Furniture looks like a massive antique armoire, with big doors that conceal wine and glass racks, a mirrored serving area, and space for a small wine refrigerator ($2,199).

Martha Stewart's Opal Point Collection for Bernhardt includes the glamorous Larkspur Bar Cabinet, which has nickel wire inlay, tall, graceful legs, and plenty of interior storage ($1,457). The Lincoln Park Kingston Bar from Stanley Furniture ($1,590) has a laminated drop lid for serving, three drawers and wine storage behind doors.

"Five or six years ago, you very rarely saw bar and wine cabinets in the stores," says Kelly Cain, product manager for Stanley, which introduced its first bar cabinet in 2003. Consumer interest has been so strong that the company is on its way to including them as a standard offering in all its furniture collections.

Why are bar cabinets so popular right now?

It could be that the big increase in U.S. wine consumption -- 249 million cases in 2005, up from 205 million in 2000, according to the Wine Market Council -- is creating a desire for pieces geared to stowing, and showing off, those bottles and proper stemware. (Pottery Barn's Modular Wine Bar, whose individual units start at $19, certainly seems aimed at this segment.)

Or it might be maturing denizens of the 1990s cocktail culture looking to create a little lounge atmosphere at home, now that kids and day jobs have made bar-hopping a distant memory.

But Cain has another theory: that the trend stems from the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"I think after that people started staying home more and entertaining," he says. "That's when the bar as a home- entertainment area emerged."

Shaun Melvin, lead designer for Baker Knapp & Tubbs, agrees: "We have definitely seen a renewed interest in entertaining in the home, and I think most of our major collections in the last three years have included some type of bar cabinet or armoire that can double as a bar."

Baker, whose finely crafted furniture is priced at heirloom-to- be levels, includes in that category the lovely Dansu Bar Cabinet from designer Laura Kirar's new collection, which has a walnut veneer, leather top, and Kirar's signature silver tassels ($8,900). Also stunning is the Kiosk Butler's Cabinet from the Bill Soffield Collection, whose black lacquer frame, tall legs and textured, gold- leafed doors give it a certain Art Deco look ($8,386).

By now, you get the idea that these cabinets have no connection to those clunky stand-behind bars some of us associate with tacky bachelor pads and 1970s rec rooms.

These are pieces that can serve as focal points in a room. Like the tall Cosmo Bar Cabinet from the Michael Weiss Modernism Collection for Vanguard Furniture ($3,350), which features a rich walnut veneer, a grid of picture-frame molding on the doors, and a fretwork of X-patterned bracing around two open-bottom shelves.

All those years ago, when my personal bar-cabinet search came up empty, I was forced to get creative.

At an antiques store, I found a 1930s free-standing kitchen cupboard with just the right dimensions and storage options. Some skilled attention from a furniture restorer and some new cabinet knobs and drawer pulls transformed the piece.

As it was being relocated to my new home earlier this year, the ersatz bar cabinet suffered quite a few nicks and scratches. Still, I can't imagine entertaining without it.

(c) 2007 Buffalo News. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.